Megamek

board editor
v1.0

credits: azdraon

special thanks to:

ben mazur
ladob
& The MegaMek Community

Last Update: December 17, 2011

 1. introduction
A warning to those who have not attempted to create their own boards in MegaMek:
The Board Editor is not the most intuitive map design program, but what it lacks in
ingenuity, it makes up for in simplicity. Creating boards for MegaMek is easy, creating
boards that are aesthetically pleasing is very hard.
I am still learning all there is to know about the Map Editor, so this is not a complete
tutorial and it will be expanded upon in the future. If anyone would like to add to this
tutorial I will release a .doc along with a pdf, or send me an email at
azdraon@gmail.com.
Future Updates I hope to have some of the following:
Explanation of .tileset files
How to create hex tiles
How to replace default hex tiles
How to integrate custom hex tiles
This Tutorial was created using version 0.35.27 of MegaMek.
**I will consistently switch between using the term board and map. These terms are
consistently interchanging in MegaMek, but they are both referring to the area of play.
Color Usage:
Red Attention grabbing
Green Highlight Unknown use
Blue Highlight Needs verification from community and/or developers
Blue Text For those wanting to learn more advanced techniques. Day 1
beginners are suggested to skip these to avoid confusion.

2. Load MegaMek Board Editor

Load MegaMek just as you would if starting a game [open the MegaMek Executable
Jar File] and select Map Editor.
The MegaMek Board Editor (MMBE) will load in a 800x600 window and you will need
to either Maximize or widen the window (not everything can be seen easily at the
default resolution).
 3. Random Map
Settings
The first window to open will be the Random Map Settings
screen. This is for when you just want something different
to play on, and do not feel like taking the time to create
something yourself. Or you can use it as inspiration, and
give you some idea of what you would like to create.
When the Random Map Settings first opens, you will be in
the Normal view. This view gives simpler instructions on
what kind of map you would like to generate with relative
terms instead of exact numbers.

4. Normal - Random Map Settings

[Note] The percentage used by the specified setting will take up the following space
on the map (unless otherwise stated with its own Low, Medium and High setting).
Low 0 to 3%
 Medium 3 to 10%
High 5 to 25%
Board size This is the width and height of the board in hexes.
Theme This determines which hex files will be used when randomly generating
a board. (Currently this setting only works with randomly generated maps)
Type in the name of the theme you would like to use. Leave blank for the
default.
The current version (0.35.27) has only 4 themes: Default (beige), Grass,
Lunar, and Mars.
Elevation The elevation for each hex is shown as LEVEL #.
Hexes with an elevation of 0 do not show a LEVEL #.
(See picture on right)
Low 4 levels of elevation (including 0)
Medium 6 levels of elevation (including 0)
High 9 levels of elevation (including 0)
Cliffs Percentage chance of a an elevation change of 2 or
greater with 2 adjacent hexes. This will help create hiding
spots for mechs, blocking LOS. The effect is subtle unless the elevation
range is high.
Low Almost no chance of a river being created.
Medium A low chance of a river being created.
High A good chance a river will be created.
Woods Will produce a scattering of light to heavy
woods. No Ultra Heavy Woods will be produced.
Rough Will produce rough (200).
(200 is an in-game factor)
Sands Will produce sand (100).
Planted Fields Will produce planted fields (30).
Swamps Will produce swamp terrain.
Road Will produce A road. This setting will create
one continuous road across the board regardless
of how large the board is. The road may have a
bend at one point, but only once.
Low Almost no chance of a road being created.
Medium A low chance of a road being created.
High A good chance a road will be created.
Lakes Will produce bodies of water with varying degrees of depth.
 Low 0 to 3% with a max depth of 2
Medium 3 to 10% with a max depth of 2
High 5 to 25% with a max depth of 2
River Will produce A river. This setting will only create one
continuous river across the board with a depth of -1.
Low Almost no chance of a river being created.
Medium A low chance of a river being created.
High A good chance a river will be created.
Craters Will create a LEVEL -1 hex, surrounded by hexes of LEVEL 0 (blank),
which are then surrounded by a LEVEL 1 (or LEVEL 2) ring of hexes, and
possibly a secondary LEVEL 2 adjacent to the LEVEL 1 hexes. (See
picture on right)
i.e. Think of an actual crater. It will have an impact point in the
middle. Surrounded by a slow, but steady increase in
elevation around the impact. It will then increase in elevation
around the edges of the crater where the dirt has been
pushed up.
Pavement Will produce pavement (200).
Ice Will produce ice (40).
Rubble Will produce rubble.
Fortified Will produce improved position.
City Will produce a an entire board with specific hexes linked
to each option. These are all very well done and great
for starting out or reaching for inspiration.
HUB This will create a city complete with buildings and roads. More
reminiscent of European cities (winding roads).
GRID This will create a city in a grid formation. More reminiscent of
modern cities in Asia and the United States (straight roads).
METRO This will create a city where 6 roads will meet at one point in the
middle. Similar to the road structure around the Arc de Triomphe in
Paris, France.
TOWN This will create a small town with roads and buildings close to the
center of the map with 2 or 3 roads leading out of the town.
HUB GRID METRO TOWN
 Mountain Will create a mountain. The size of the mountain(s) does not scale
to the board size.
Low 1 mountain with a peak elevation of LEVEL 5.
Range in size from 10x10 to 20x20 hexes.
Medium 2 mountains with a peak elevation of LEVEL 8.
Range in size from 10x10 to 20x20 hexes.
High 2 or 3 mountains with a peak elevation of LEVEL 10.
Range in size from 10x10 to 30x30 hexes.

5. Advanced - Random Map

Settings
The advanced options for a random board allow for much greater
customization of the board. I am going to keep this section brief and
only touch on some of the options in the advanced settings.
Amount of elevation(0-99) Changes how rough the terrain is.
A higher value will create more drastic changes from the
elevation of each adjacent hex.
Elevation range The range between the lowest point of
elevation to the highest. Recommend using values 1-10.
Algorithm A value of 0 will generate rolling hills. 0 is also
the least likely to cause terrain to block Line-Of-Sight
(LOS). A value of 1 will create spiky terrain. 2 will
combine both generators
Peaks How many mountain peaks there will be.
Mountain Style Unknown.
[Note] The probability of the following 4 settings is tied ONLY to the creation of the map
and will not save the probability in the settings of the map when opening to play
in MegaMek. All values for Probability range from 0-100.
Probability for drought Likelihood the water will turn into rough (200).
Probability for fires Likelihood the trees will be on fire.
Probability for frozen water Likelihood the water will become ice (40).
Probability for flooded map Likelihood the map will flood, thus all areas that
had a negative elevation will become underwater and hexes on LEVEL 0
will become swamps.
Special FX Modifier Changes the degree of effectiveness for each of the 4
probabilities above. The value should change in small increments.
I.e. Change the values by 1-3.
City blocks Determines how many roads and cross streets will be on the map.
Will scale with map size.
CF Determines the buildings that will be put in the map. Below are the values
to have specific buildings.
1 15 16 40 41 90 91 150

[Note] The values do not fluctuate for more or less of a specific

building within its own value.
i.e. Having a minimum and maximum value of 1 will have the same
effect as if having a minimum and maximum value of 15 or a
minimum value of 1 and a maximum value of 15.
[Note] The program allows for a combination of buildings to be
auto-generated, but you cannot have buildings with a CF of
1-15 with buildings of a CF of 41-90 and leave out buildings
with a CF of 15-40.
Floors 1 through 6 is default, but may range from 1-50.
Density Effects the congestion of the buildings. The values are 1-100. A
value of 100 will put a building in every hex that a building is possible.
Town Size (%) - Only affects TOWN size. A value of 0 will increase how far
from the town builds will go (effectively going all the way to the edge of
the map no mater the size), where as a value of 1000 will increase how far
roads stretch out as well as the buildings.

6. Board Editor Interface

The board editor's interface is challenging to get a grasp on and takes lots of trial and
error to figure out when attempting to understand it on your own. It looks simple
enough, but turns into a monster when you have an idea but cannot figure out how to
bring it to life. I hope this will bring to light what certain buttons and text are telling you.
This is where it starts to get tricky, so if you become confused, step away for a second
and come back. It took be hours before I finally understood everything I was looking at.
Please refer to the image on the left for A N.
A. Working Hex This is the hex that will be
produced on the board when left clicking. If
you just started the Board Editor most likely
you will see a plain beige hex tile I am sure you
have seen in several of your maps when
playing MegaMek. I have selected a few
terrain features to help explain the interface.
[Note] The Working Hex will sometimes lie. It will
show an image of 1 hex tile, but when you click
on the board, a different tile will appear. If the
Working Hex was showing you a hex tile in
error, often it will correct itself as soon as you
paste (left click) the Working Hex onto the
board. There are exceptions e.g. roads.
Notice the SUPER text on the top-left hand side of
the Working Hex. I will explain more in detail of this
significance later.
B. Elevation This is the elevation for the Working
Hex. Press the U to increase the elevation or
D to decrease, or you can manually set the
elevation by typing in the text box to the right of
the U and D.
C. Terrain Feature This is where all the Terrain
Features for your Working Hex will appear.
e.g. My Working Hex shows the the
swamp hex tile (the blue/green water), then the woods hex tile (it is
specifically the lf4 hex tile which is tied to its file name: lf4.gif). The
beige_plains_1.gif is the base hex and does not appear in the
Terrain Feature textbox. More on base hexes later.
[Note] The 1:0 for the woods is the level:exits. These help the editor identify which
hex from the tile-set to use.
D. Remove Terrain This button will remove the selected terrain hex in the Terrain
 Feature text-box.
e.g. If I click on woods and click Remove Terrain it will leave me with
just the swamp hex tile. If I then click on swamp and click
Remove Terrain it will leave me with the base hex tile. To be more
specific, it would leave me with a beige_plains_1.gif hex tile
because my elevation is still set at 1.
E. Terrain Selection This drop-down box allows us to pick out
specific terrain features we would like to have. Click the
drop-down box and look at the selection. Nothing yet will
happen when selecting any of the terrain features.
F. Level This text-box will tell the editor specifically which of the
various terrain hex files you would like to use under the
specified Terrain Selected.
G. Set Exits Exits are an additional factor the Board Editor
uses to assist in identifying which hex-tile to use and
when. This is something you will largely ignore in the
beginning stages.
e.g. When using roads, you can lay out a road
anywhere on the map very simply and only need to
select the Terrain roads with the level 1. The
image in the Working Hex will show a road with 6
paths. Don't let this scare you. Start clicking and
dragging on the board, it will produce a normal road.
H. Exit Paths Diagram Continuation of the G. Set Exits. Clicking the A will bring
up a dialogue box that has check boxes numbered 0-5. This is where you can
specify exits for a hex tile.
e.g. Say you want to have a road go North without the road turning (i.e.
exiting), but you have pavement hex tiles adjacent to your path
(See image Road Step 1 below).

The Working Hex image is the standard image seen when working
with road:1 and no set exits. [Pavement will force a road tile to
turn (i.e. exit) into the adjacent pavement hex-tile]

If you simply try to paste a road onto the board alongside the
pavement, it wont look right (See image Road Step 2).

You can click A, set the exits to be 0 and 3 (see image Road
Step 3), click done then click Add/Set Terrain, and this will force
the road to go from the North and South (see image Road Step 4,
 [notice the Working Hex now looks different]) sides of the hex
without veering when we paste the road hex tile adjacent to the
pavement (See image Road Step 5 and 6).
Road Step 1 Road Step 2 Road Step 3

Road Step 4 Road Step 5 Road Step 6

J. Exit Roads to Pavement Unknown (have tested, but cannot determine its use).
K. Theme Type in a theme you would like to use for the base hex tiles.
e.g. Grass, Lunar, or Mars.
L. Add/Set Terrain This will add the terrain selected in the Terrain Selection to the
Terrain Feature with the specified level and exits. The Working Hex should
change to an image of the combined terrain in the Terrain Selection.
M. Toggle MiniMap Open/Close the MiniMap.
N. Board Click New to start a new board. Save As Image... will save a .png file of
an overview of the board. Great for posting screenshots for the MegaMek
community to see your map!
Short Cuts:
Change Elevation: Ctrl + Left Click - This will change the elevation of the selected to
the Working Hex tiles elevation level.
Copy Board Hex: Alt + Left Click This will copy the hex tile on the board and make
the copy your Working Hex tile.

7. Hex Tiles
If someone knows the special properties for each hex (to-hit effect, pilot checks,
additional movement cost, etc.) and would be willing to let me know for each one in a
comprehensive list I would greatly appreciate it, and of course I will give credit to those
who help in the next update to this tutorial.
The following hex tiles are in order of appearance in the Terrain Selection.
Key: * = Any Number
Theme:
(Type the name of the theme to place the respective hex tiles)
Default Grass Lunar Mars Volcano

Woods:1 Woods:2 Woods:3

Water:1 Water:2 Water:3 Water:4

Rough:1 Rough:2

Rubble:1 Rubble:2 Rubble:3 Rubble:4 Rubble:5 Rubble:6

Jungle:1 Jungle:2 Jungle:3

Sand:1

Tundra:1

Magma:1 Magma:2
Planted_fields:1

Heavy_industrial:*

Space:1

Pavement:1

Roads:
(Default is no set exit)
(Specific Exits for Building Terrain Feature: 00-68)
Road:1 Road:2

Swamp:1
 Mud:1 Mud:2

Rapids:(1 or 2)
(Water:2 is added as a backdrop. Rapids is the white spots)

Ice:

Snow:1

Fire:1 Fire:2

Smoke:1 Smoke:2
Geyser:1 & Geyser:3 Geyser:2

Buildings & Bridges:

Buildings & bridges are a bit more complicated than all other hex tiles
because they take multiple Terrain Features to work. Unless you meet all
the criteria, an image will not appear in the working hex, however, the
Terrain Features selected for the Working Hex will be placed onto the map
regardless of a building image or not.
Like Roads, Buildings & Bridges will auto-connect to one another if certain
Terrain Feature criteria is met and the hex tiles are placed adjacent to one
another. If confused, put the selected Terrain Features into a Working Hex
and test out designing Buildings & Bridges for yourself.
_cf This is how much tonnage a building/bridge can support when a unit
is/lands on top. Unsure on the specifics of _cf.
_elev The elevation height of the building/bridge (Base Hex elevation +
Building/Bridge Elevation = Total Elevation for the specific hex).
_class Unknown. Not Required.
_armor Armor of the building when being fired upon. Not Required.
Stand Alone Buildings:
(All Building Terrain Feature Exits set to 0)
Building:1:0 Building:1:0 Building:1:0 Building:1:0
Bldg_elev:1 Bldg_elev:2 Bldg_elev:3 Bldg_elev:4
Bldg_cf:*

Building:2:0 Building:2:0 Building:2:0 Building:2:0

Bldg_elev:1 Bldg_elev:2 Bldg_elev:3 Bldg_elev:4
Bldg_cf:*
Building:3:0 Building:3:0 Building:3:0 Building:3:0
Bldg_elev:1 Bldg_elev:2 Bldg_elev:3 Bldg_elev:4
Bldg_cf:*

Building:4:0 Building:4:0 Building:4:0 Building:4:0

Bldg_elev:1 Bldg_elev:2 Bldg_elev:3 Bldg_elev:4
Bldg_cf:*

Connected Buildings:
(Default is no set exit)
(Specific Exits for Building Terrain Feature: 00-68)
Building:1 Building:2 Building:3 Building:4
Bldg_elev:*
Bldg_cf:*
Bldg_class:*
Bldg_armor:*

Dropship:
Building:4:## (Insert respective number from below in ##)
:69 :70 :71 :72 :73 :74 :75
Bridge:
(Specific Exits for Bridge Terrain Feature: 00-63)
Bridge:*
Bridge_cf:*
Bridge_elev:*

Fuel Tank:
(Specific Exits for Fuel_tank Terrain Feature: 00-68)
(Any Connected Building can become a Fuel Tank. If the structure is
destroyed an explosion will occur)
Fuel_tank:1 Fuel_tank:2 Fuel_tank:3 Fuel_tank:4
Fuel_tank_elev:*
Fuel_tank_cf:*
Fuel_tank_magn:*

Impassable:1

Elevator:(-10 thru 10)

Unknown use.

Fortified:1
Screen:1

Fluff:2:0 Fluff:2:1 Fluff:2:2 Fluff:2:3 Fluff:2:4

Fluff:4:0 Fluff:4:1 Fluff:4:2 Fluff:4:3 Fluff:4:4 Fluff:4:5

Fluff:4:6 Fluff:4:7 Fluff:4:8 Fluff:4:9 Fluff:4:10 Fluff:4:11

Fluff:5:0 Fluff:5:1 Fluff:5:2 Fluff:5:3 Fluff:5:4 Fluff:5:5

Fluff:5:6 Fluff:5:7
Fluff:6:0 Fluff:6:1 Fluff:6:2 Fluff:6:3 Fluff:6:4 Fluff:6:5

Fluff:6:6 Fluff:6:7 Fluff:6:8 Fluff:6:9 Fluff:6:10 Fluff:6:11

Fluff:6:12 Fluff:6:13 Fluff:6:14 Fluff:6:15 Fluff:6:16 Fluff:6:17

Fluff:6:18

Fluff:7:0 Fluff:7:1 Fluff:7:2 Fluff:7:3 Fluff:7:4 Fluff:7:5

Fluff:8:6 Fluff:8:7 Fluff:8:8 Fluff:8:9 Fluff:8:10 Fluff:8:11

Fluff:9:0 Fluff:9:1 Fluff:9:2 Fluff:9:3 Fluff:9:4 Fluff:9:5

Fluff:9:6 Fluff:9:7 Fluff:9:8 Fluff:9:9 Fluff:9:10 Fluff:9:11

Arms:1 Arms:2

Legs:1 Legs:2